Please give me some motherboard/cpu advice

TooCoolToRule

TooCoolToRule

TooCoolToRule

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18 Jul 2011
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I have a maximum budget of £340. I am a gamer. I do video encoding/converting. SLI would be a bonus, but not a must have feature. Hyper Threading would be a bonus, but not a must have feature unless I would get any extra advantage with video encoding. Might Hyper Threading have any advantage (purely for gaming purposes) in the next 2-3 years as I would rather pay the extra now than later ?

Considerations for CPU :-

i5-3570, i5-4670, i7-4770/4771. Minor clock speed differences aside, why is the i7 considered to be better than the i5 range of CPU's in general ? Is it worth it for me paying the extra for one of the the Hyper Threaded i7's ?

Considerations for the Motherboard :-

ASRock Z87 Extreme4, ASRock Z87 Extreme6, Asus Z87-PRO, MSI Z87-G45 Gaming, MSI Z87-GD65 Gaming or any other Z87 and Z77 motherboard you may want to recommend me that is within my budget/needs. I would also prefer a motherboard with at least 3 case fan headers.
 
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The i7 has hyperthreading over the i5, nothing else.. Hyper-threading will help you with video ecoding and MAY come into games in the next few years, though i feel the difference will be very little.

Are you wanting to Overclock? Have you already got a cooler? Have you already got a case?

Z77 motherboards are Ivybridge not Haswell (just so you know).
 
Thanks for the reply.

Overclocking ? Not unless the motherboard has a feature for a quick and automatic overclock like the MSI's OC Genie feature. The MSI Z87-G45 has great memory support as well.

Already have a workstation class Chenbro Gaming Bomb II case. I have an Arctic Freezer Cooling CPU fan already but am gonna sell my old motherboard/cpu together with the cooler as i'd rather that than take it off and clean the cpu/cooler and repaste the cpu. Besides, you can get a fairly decent cooler for under £25 these days.

I knew about the Z77 motherboards being Ivybridge. I meant to include the i5-3570 so I have edited my first post but there may not be much of a price difference between it and it's Haswell equivalent.

I am studying PC maintenance and have already taken apart/rebuilt several PC's so I will be doing the upgrade myself.
 
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TooCoolToRule said:
Thanks for the reply.

Overclocking ? Not unless the motherboard has a feature for a quick and automatic overclock like the MSI's OC Genie feature. The MSI Z87-G45 has great memory support as well.

Already have a workstation class Chenbro Gaming Bomb II case. I have an Arctic Freezer Cooling CPU fan already but am gonna sell my old motherboard/cpu together with the cooler as i'd rather that than take it off and clean the cpu/cooler and repaste the cpu. Besides, you can get a fairly decent cooler for under £25 these days.

I knew about the Z77 motherboards being Ivybridge. I meant to include the i5-3570 so I have edited my first post but there may not be much of a price difference between it and it's Haswell equivalent.

I am studying PC maintenance and have already taken apart/rebuilt several PC's so I will be doing the upgrade myself.
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Most motherboards have the OC genie feature now.. Though it's not great, it puts a lot of vcore through the CPU which make the temps pretty toasty.. I would avoid using it to be honest..

Though overclocking through the BIOS isn't too hard..

A non-K version would be cheaper
 
Doomedspeed said:
Most motherboards have the OC genie feature now.. Though it's not great, it puts a lot of vcore through the CPU which make the temps pretty toasty.. I would avoid using it to be honest..

Though overclocking through the BIOS isn't too hard..

A non-K version would be cheaper
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Thanks for the advice. I wasn't including the 'K' variants. I'll save the OC genie until the CPU starts showing it's age in 3 years or so, then consider my budget and think about overclocking before splashing out again.

What about the motherboard, if you don't mind ? My initial thoughts were the i7-4771 (considering the Hyper Threading will help with my video encoding like you mentioned and a 'possible' future bonus with gaming and it's the same price in the overclockers store as the i7-4770 right now) and the MSI Z87-G45 Gaming. I think I can stretch to being £3.98 over budget.
 
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EdgeDs said:
I7 wont leave much budget have you concidered the 8320 from amd.
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Thanks for the advice as well but my budget is fine as per my previous post. Although not many nowadays are flash-with-the-cash (myself included), saving money isn't the idea. The money is there for me to spend. I am more concerned with paying for features I won't make real use of and quality of parts for the money.
 
you could save some money on the board if you went for a h87 or a b85 chipset instead of a z87 chipset

it will support the i7 4771 just the same and some boards support sli/xfire also,ram speed is limited to 1600mhz on h87/b85
 
wazza300 said:
you could save some money on the board if you went for a h87 or a b85 chipset instead of a z87 chipset

it will support the i7 4771 just the same and some boards support sli/xfire also,ram speed is limited to 1600mhz on h87/b85
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If you don't mind me asking, what other considerations are there between the z87 and the h87/b85 chipsets other than ram speed and price ?
 
there's not much difference tbh

the z87 boards are aimed at overclocking and will have better power phases,sound chips,more overclocking options

if that's not important then the h87/b85 boards are a good alternative,not sure if they support sli though as I don't think sli supports 4x pcie speed for the second slot

I think amd xfire does though

all boards would support a single card at 16x pcie speed
 
Thanks for the advice.

The B85 chipset would lose me SLI support so that's out.

Depending on the motherboard, the H87 motherboard chipset would lose me manual but not automatic overclocking because some still have OC Genie (or similar I guess) and I would lose 'Lake Tiny'. I don't have an ssd and if I did, 'Lake Tiny' would make no significant change in power saving anyway from what I have read. I will certainly consider the H87 motherboard chipset but I think that is out of consideration due to the restricted choice for memory speeds. Even though I supposedly can still have x8/x8 SLI support I can find no H87 motherboard that supports it.

I guess at the end of the day, nothing is perfect and compromises have to be made. I have at least made two choices on the advice given to me in here and for that I am thankful :D.
 
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fowler002 said:
if you can do without sli

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-4770K 3.50GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £275.99
1 x Gigabyte Z87-D3HP Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £109.99
Total : £396.78 (includes shipping : £9.00).



£50-£60 over budget but well worth it, the motherboard comes with a free cpu cooler. you can use the auto oc then if you feel brave in the future it'll allow for maul oc as well.
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Thanks. I am not really interested in the 'K' variants for a reason I mentioned earlier. Maybe I should have mentioned I have an NVidia GPU (Evga GTX 770 SC) so Crossfire support is not at present of interest or use to me. Yes I can forgo SLI support but not to swap it for Crossfire support. The cooler is a nice bonus though.
 
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If you were to get a K variant CPU you could overclock it when you start to feel like you need a little more performance, rather than upgrading. Which could save you money in the long run.

I bought my i5 2500K just after it came out in early 2011. I ran it at stock, then auto OC 4.2, then manual 4.6, then 4.7, and I know it is capable of at least 5 with reasonably safe volts.

The CPU might be nearly 3 years old now, but at 4.7GHz it outperforms the latest equivalent. (4670K) at its stock speed.

In all honesty, I plan on making this CPU last until Skylake or Cannonlake (2015/16 ish) when we will see DDR4 and PCI-E 4.0.
 
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acme15 said:
If you were to get a K variant CPU you could overclock it when you start to feel like you need a little more performance, rather than upgrading. Which could save you money in the long run.

I bought my i5 2500K just after it came out in early 2011. I ran it at stock, then auto OC 4.2, then manual 4.6, then 4.7, and I know it is capable of at least 5 with reasonably safe volts.

The CPU might be nearly 3 years old now, but at 4.7GHz it outperforms the latest equivalent. (4670K) at its stock speed.

In all honesty, I plan on making this CPU last until Skylake or Cannonlake (2015/16 ish) when we will see DDR4 and PCI-E 4.0.
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Thank you for the advice. Your i5-2500k is way better than my current 2.66 ghz Core 2 Quad. Wanna swap :D?

I don't want to keep explaining my reasons for not wanting a 'K' variant i7/i5. It makes me sound pushy to those that don't have the time to read the whole thread and like a parrot to those that have ;).

All I would appreciate at the moment is recommendations for an SLI capable Z87 motherboard that is priced under £115 and of a good quality for the price. I would also like 3+ case fan headers and good ram support. Onboard sound (however cheap) is okay as I only have a pair of desktop stereo speakers. Onboard ethernet is fine too. I could stretch my budget to another £30 or so but unless I am really out of touch with component costs, a £115 budget seems reasonable to me ;).
 
The motherboard in my spec may have xfire compatibility but is not really suitable for xfire due to the second pci-e only being 4x, its a motherboard for a single gpu(be it an and card or a nvidia) setup.
Yes I've read your previous posts about not wanting the k variant, however as aceme said its good to have it as an option for the future. But if your insistent on not having the k variant then that's your choice, I like the rest of the people here can only make suggestions its you who decides what to get/not to get in the end.
 
Doomedspeed said:
You have described this motherboard: YOUR BASKET 1 x MSI Z87-G45 Gaming Series Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £113.99 Total : £122.69 (includes shipping : £7.25). Feel free to go for the 4771.. :)
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Thanks. That seems like a good choice for me.

Jasseh said:
If my board budget was £115 I would definitely be considering this one. Looks good and has all the features you require, go for it :).
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Thanks again.

fowler002 said:
Yes I've read your previous posts about not wanting the k variant, however as aceme said its good to have it as an option for the future. But if your insistent on not having the k variant then that's your choice, I like the rest of the people here can only make suggestions its you who decides what to get/not to get in the end.
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Thanks. The last thing I want is to sound inflexible.

The i7-3770K has both Hyper Threading and an unlocked multiplier. Would the Haswell CPU's TSX-NI function make any noticable difference in gaming or video encoding/editing ? Would the fact that the i7-3770K is older technology (and a different socket) limit any upgrading potential within the projected life of the Haswell CPU's ? The i7-3770K and the i7-4770/4771 are currently the same price.

If not, is the i7-3770K paired with the ASRock Z77-Extreme4 a good choice ? That motherboard has everything I could possibly want. It has very good reviews, the price is good, the ram support is great, enough fan headers for all my case fans, 4 sata 3 connectors, 4 sata 2 connectors, 1 e-sata connector and SLI/Crossfire support x8/x8 using PCI Express 3.0 :D.
 
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